


A Girl Walks Into a Florist

by hawkeish



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, F/M, Flirting, Humor, Meet-Cute, Purple-Red Hawke (Dragon Age), Threats of Violence, or meet-chaos, that's probably more appropriate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeish/pseuds/hawkeish
Summary: ...with a broken nose and a weird request.Red Hawke is on a mission, and that mission involves getting a bouquet of flowers as fast as is possible.Anders doesn't know what in the Maker's name is happening.Total, absolute modern AU flower-shop crack, which I might just make my canon.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	A Girl Walks Into a Florist

**Author's Note:**

> cw for violence mention!

“You’re still open? Thank the fucking Maker—”

“Excuse me—are you _bleeding_ —”

“Oh, don’t mind that. Nose might be fucked, might not. I’ll take a bouquet! White lilies, white chrysanthemums. Or is that too much white? Hey, why not throw in some gladioli—”

“Are you—those are _funeral_ flowers, ma’am—”

“Wonderful! It’ll really send the message that if he so much as tries to fuck with me again, he’ll be six feet under and I’ll be cackling as I throw the first shovel of dirt onto his coffin. Do you have one of those cards that says ‘I’m sorry for your loss’? No worries if not. I just thought it would be a nice touch.”

Anders usually has a lot to say. It’s usually about why a policy of radical leftism is the only way to create a fairer and more equal society, but still. He can be good at small-talk when the time comes, or when he’s serving one of the regular older ladies who like to spill all the scandalous gossip from their weekly book group as they pick out suitable memorial flowers for their most recently deceased enemy.

For once, though, Anders finds that words are escaping him.

“Uh, yeah.” Despite his better judgement, he automatically gestures to the wall of cards to the right of the shop. A small part of him wants to say something like _this is my lovely, nice, serene place of work, why in Andraste’s name have you come in to bleed all over it?_ But the almost-qualified doctor in him—and the very large part of him that’s thinking w _hat in the ever-loving fuck_ —just says: “Are you sure your nose is OK?”

“Huh, this?” Scanning the rows of demure sympathy messages, the woman prods it, then winces. More blood glugs from a nostril. “It’ll be grand.”

It will not be grand. Even from behind the counter, with a jungle’s worth of monstera leaves between him and this new customer, Anders can see that her nose is very much broken. “Listen, I’m in medical school, I can take a look—”

“Thanks but no thanks, pretty boy,” the woman breaks in, not even glancing back at him. Plucking a card from the rack, she flips it open. “ _Gone, but not forgotten_ ,” she intones, with a mock-severity that almost makes Anders laugh. “A bit gauche? Hm. See, I’m on a time limit. Need to get these to my brother before he sets off for Ms. Meredith’s School for Good Little Templars later this evening. Appreciate the offer, though.”

Brother. _Brother_? Anders almost drops the chrysanthemum in his hand. “These are for your—”

The woman turns and looks him dead in the eye. “You heard me.”

Anders opens his mouth to speak, lets out a breath, thinks better of it, and closes his mouth again.

“Yeah.” Wandering back towards him with a card in hand, the woman grins; the dried blood on her upper lip cracks. “Better not to ask. Anyway, what’s the damage? And are you going to do your job, or…?”

With one hand, she waves at him as he stands there doing admittedly nothing aside from holding a single stem and gawking at her, then waves at the buckets around them, bursting with flowers. With her other, she starts pulling shite—utter, absolute shite—from the pockets of her denim jacket and slaps it down on the counter between them. Old subway ticket stubs. Random coins. A lipstick with no cap. What looks like a rusted nipple bar, but Anders hopes is an earring that’s fallen out. An unused condom. Somehow, an already-smoked cigarette. Then, a card decorated with a colourful, cartoonish picture of a chihuahua wearing a sombrero and the word “¡Adios!”, beneath which is scrawled **YOU FUCKING DONKEY.**

For a long moment, there’s silence. Halfway through putting together her monstrosity of a bouquet as fast as his hands can work, Anders stares down at the card, then drags his gaze up to meet hers. Drumming her fingertips against the counter as she fishes something else from her pocket with her spare hand, she’s smiling the smile of someone who just watched a small child fall over. She’s pretty, Anders notices, against his will and better judgement. Pretty in the way that a bird of prey looks, before it tears your eyes out with its beak.

Finally, he manages something, frowning down at what must be her backup card. “So you’re telling me ‘adios, you fucking donkey’ was your first choice, but ‘gone, but not forgotten’ feels too _gauche_ —”

“Will ten quid do?” She interrupts. She’s stopped drumming; instead, she’s holding something out towards him. A creased note, tucked between two fingers like you’d hold a smoke. “And a woman needs options. Who knows how I’ll be feeling when I get home? Still murderous, I imagine. But maybe I’ll fancy a laugh as I make a washing line out of his innards!”

_She’s not attractive_ , Anders is telling himself, as he suddenly wonders why he finds her extremely attractive. _Washing line_ , Anders is telling himself, as he pulls the silver bow on the bouquet tight. _Innards_. “I—we don’t work on a bartering service—”

“Delightful!” The woman grins, a shark-smile that’s all gleaming teeth, then starts to shove her belongings back into her pockets. “Ten quid it is! Oh, and you can even keep this as a token of my appreciation. You’ve been _so_ helpful. Are they done?”

All alone on the counter sits the condom.

Maker, if this is how she flirts—

Anders feels a flush creep up his neck, bloom across his cheeks, but tries to ignore it, forcing the customer service smile back on. Taking the money from her, careful not to actually touch her, he takes a final look at the bouquet before handing it over. Somehow, it’s one of his best: perfectly arranged, smelling as though it was perfumed by Andraste herself, each flower blooming just _so_.

“Good choices,” he says mechanically, like he does with any other customer. Because this is any other customer. Normal. Fine. Not a woman he doesn’t want to find attractive, standing before him with an extremely broken nose, making threats of murder so casually that it’s as though she’s remarking upon the weather. Anders clears his throat. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah,” the woman replies. “They are.”

Anders looks up from the flowers.

Head cocked to the side, the woman’s staring straight at him, with eyes as blue as the Waking Sea. He gets the feeling that she has been for a while.

And then she takes the flowers and the bell on the door chimes and she’s disappeared into the evening like some kind of spectre, and Anders is left staring at a ten sovereign note and a condom that may or may not have expired, wondering why in Andraste’s blessed memory he wishes he’d asked her for her name.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, I can't EXPLAIN how much fun this was to write. My Hawke gets slightly more unhinged every time I open a word doc and it's great.
> 
> make sure to check whether your condoms are expired before you bone down xx also come say hi over at @hawkeish on tumblr and @abitofatit on Twitter!


End file.
